Bob Ross Finds New Audience in Streaming Medium

Bob Ross, the star of "The Joy of Painting" who taught millions the wet-on-wet painting technique on PBS, is finding new life among a new audience.

Twitch, a social video platform and community for gamers bought by Amazon for roughly $1 billion in 2014, was probably not the most orthodox place for Bob Ross to make a comeback, but this is the internet and the internet does weird things.

The livestream gaming network sought to promote the launch of its new creative section where gamers and non-gamers alike could share their talents. Enter the happy little tree. With the help of Janson Media and BobRoss Inc., Twitch was able to broadcast every single episode of the original Bob Ross show in a marathon lasting nearly nine days.

All proceeds from the broadcasts went to the rights holders, Root Division (a local arts organization that supports artists as well as teaching children the arts), St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Twitch Creative community support.

The channel amassed millions of viewers by the marathons end this past Friday. The Twitch community and army of new Bob Ross fans responded by launching the social media campaign #KEEPBOB.

Unable to ignore the will of the people and perhaps surprised by their own "happy accident," Twitch worked with the rights holders and announced that Monday nights are now "Bob Ross Night."

From 3pm PST to 9:30pm PST, Twitch.tv/BobRoss will stream an entire season of Bob Ross' "Joy of Painting."

As an added bonus, every year on October 29th, Bob's birthday, Twitch will run all 31 seasons in a row.

Over 40,000 people were in the channel hyped for the first season of "The Joy of Painting" to begin. Though that number dipped to around 20,000 roughly half way through the stream.